I've been chewing my nails to the bone trying to figure out how to make a stack of spiffy medals for those brave souls who will be joining me for the Inaugural Wiki Wiki VanTiki 5k. With a mere 39 days left till Oasis weekend, things were looking bleak. A few days ago I had an epiphany (while running, naturally), and I believe that I figured out a way to make porcelain medals for everyone! I'll be sure to post photos as they develop. Due to time (and $$) constraints, they will not be relief sculptures - but they will be neat ceramic keepsakes to remind you of your weekend efforts!

Here I am logging training miles this weekend during one of the best sunrises I've ever seen on Oahu

I hope you are all enjoying your training, and are staying injury free. See you at Tiki Oasis!

Some run for glory, some run for fitness, but most (secretly) run for the cool medals. With that in mind, I wanted to put something together special for the folks who brave the sunrise (and possible hangover) with me on Sunday morning. I had a few unique criteria to deal with - mainly the fact that there is next to no $$ for medals, as well as next to to time to make them. With only a month to Oasis, I had to give up on my original idea of pressing a unique pendant. It would just take too long to sculpt, mold, dry, press, dry, and fire (whew!). On top of that, it would be a major time investment for me. What to do? Well, it just so happens that I was researching printable decals for clay while designing Tiki Jugs for oasis

And I realized the technique would be PERFECT for finisher's medals! Now, you are thinking "I don't want a medal with a plastic decal on it!" - don't worry, neither do I! These are special ceramic decals that you print with a standard laser printer and fire in the kiln. While cooking in the kiln, the toner vaporizes, and the iron oxide in the toner stains the clay brown - exactly like a classic oxide ceramic stain, but far more precise. At least, that is what is supposed to happen.

Over the weekend, I designed the medals and had a few sheets of the special decal film printed (it is the exact same "water slide" decal paper that plastic model kit decals use). I had intended to use porcelain for the medal blanks - but the bag of porcelain in my studio tuned out to be unusable. With time running out, I grabbed a bag of white sculpture clay and set to work making blanks:

Once they had dried out completely, I carefully cut out each decal, soaked it in warm water, and slid them onto the blanks:

This morning I loaded them up in the kiln, and they are cooking as I type!

Will they tun out OK? Who knows. I've never done this before, and I am worried that the rough sculpture clay may not yield results as nice as porcelain would have. We will know more in 24 hours